Location Based Services (LBS) permit a mobile unit or Mobile Station (MS) to communicate an inquiry to a Position Determination Entity (PDE) seeking to obtain location information relating to the inquiring MS. LBS are usually a billed service offered by mobile carriers operating mobile networks. A MS may be operating in its Home network operated by its Home carrier, or the MS may be roaming in another mobile network than its Home network that is operated by a Serving carrier. In a hosted PDE environment where the PDE serves several different mobile networks that may be operated by different carriers, the PDE does not (or is unable to) identify the Home and Serving carriers involved in a location request and may service the location request regardless of any agreements between the carriers regardless of whether the MS is authorized to receive LBS. The billing record generated by the PDE may not specifically identify the Home carrier of the subscriber MS, resulting in the wrong carrier being billed for the PDE access. In cases where the PDE does not provide service for the Serving carrier, a roaming subscriber MS may not be able to obtain location based service while roaming.
When a carrier uses Trusted LBS applications, using prior art technology the PDE may service every request received even if the request originates from a MS which has not purchased the LBS service and has fraudulently obtained the Internet Protocol (IP) Address of the PDE. Authorization to receive LBS is important in Trusted as well as Non-trusted LBS applications.
There is a need for a system and method for hosting location based services (LBS) for a mobile station operating among a plurality of mobile networks that can identify a mobile station requesting LBS and verify authorization for a PDE to provide LBS to the identified mobile station.
There is a need for a system and method for hosting location based services (LBS) for a mobile station operating among a plurality of mobile networks that can identify Home and Serving carriers involved in a location request.